Silver Threads

I'm Back!!!

2008-05-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Hey, I just reclaimed this blog after forgetting about it for a few years (it was originally made just for an english class's assignments), and while I might not post again right away, I will probably be using this blog sometime in the near future. So until then, ciao!

How did he DO that?

2005-05-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

1. First of all, that was awesome!!!! Although I have watched those TV magic specials with magicians performing I have never actually seen one in front of me. The dictionary thing was unbelievable. I don't understand how he did anything that he did and to tell the truth, I don't want to know. I would rather not know how he can find a card or shuffle them so that one hand has only black cards while the other has only red. I would rather marvel at the fact that he did the trick than find out the mechanics of it. It loses its magic qualities when you realize that anyone could do it if they trained long enough. Besides, it is more fun just to be entertained and marvel at the impossible than to go through the logistics of every move.

2. Kostya (Are we supposed to call him Kostya, Mr. Kimlat, or what?) is obviously not like Gandalf, Dumbledore, or anyone/anything in Spirited Away. He is not like the wise omnipotent wizard figures from Harry Potter or The Hobbit with their obvious otherworldly powers and glowing stick things (Freudian phallic symbolism... and now I am scaring myself), and he obviously has no association with radish spirits or magical boys/dragons/river-spirits. He belongs in our reality with his simple manner of speaking and his joking commentary throughout the show, but at the same time he has skills that most people don't and he can do things that we can't explain. Like Kainoa said, he is most like Signor Brunoni from Cranford because of how his magic is seen as tricks accomplished through practiced moves and misdirection. The slight of hand card tricks and the cold reading of the people who picked the cards are examples of how Kostya does not actually possess magical abilities that he uses to perform. Yet, at the same time, certain tricks that he did are not simply explained through the standard ideas of how magic is accomplished, and that is what makes the performance a magical one rather than a simple showcase of practiced skills. The part of the show with the dictionary was so impressive because of how the whole setup said of some kind of preshow setup, but how could the whole thing have been setup if the page picked wasn't torn ahead of time? How could he know what page she would stop on before the performance? That is what causes the audience's opinion of the act to change from 'well-done trick' to 'magic'.

Spirited Anime

2005-05-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

AHHH!!! I'm sooo sorry! I just check my blog for the first time since this weekend, only to realize that the Spirited Away blog hadn't published. I don't know why, but I apologize for the lateness.

1. I have seen Spirited Away before we watched it in class (I have the DVD in my dorm room), and so I knew the basic plot before watching it. I am not a big anime fan, and I find Miyazaki's other works just plain weird, but I really enjoy Spirited Away. It has a kind of Alice in Wonderland quality with the travel into a different world though a tunnel, but it has a distinct cultural twist to it. I also like it a lot better than Alice in Wonderland. The creatures and art that Miyazaki uses is phenomenal, you can tell what type of flowers are in the background and all the buildings are done with exquisite detail. The creatures are often based on figures in legends of the orient, most are understandably from Japanese and Chinese myth, but once in awhile Miyazaki just throws in characters, like the soot ball creatures. They are my favorite characters along with the spirit creatures that look like rubber ducks.

2. While Spirited Away differs greatly from the works of Tolkien and Rowling, it does share many of the same basic qualities. There is a maturing of the main characters, magician figures interact with the story, often disturbing the main character's plans, the main character makes friends and alliances as they go through the story, among other things. One of the interesting shared traits is the use of magical items throughout the stories. In The Hobbit the magical items were the more traditional things like swords and rings. Classic enchanted items for a classic magical journey novel. In Harry Potter the magical items were more wide spread and common, the characters have magical wands, cloaks, hats, even candy. Yet, the magical items had a certain correspondence between the item and its magical abilities. In Spirited Away there are few truly magical items, but the items that are magical are very odd and unpredictable. A skull is a telephone, a slug thing is a controlling spell, a greenish ball is some kind of purifying magical medicine from a river spirit. There is some correspondence, but overall the items are almost random. The magical people in the stories move from the traditional wizards and witches in The Hobbit and Harry Potter to river gods, giant headed women, and old men with 6 extendable arms. All the characters in Spirited Away except Chihiro and her parents are magical to some extent because of their existence as spirits. All in all the magic people and items in the different stories are very similar with main differences stemming from cultural shifts.

The Paper of DOOM

2005-04-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well, actually the title is kind of a fib, it isn't that bad...
1. The final thesis:
When any two versions of the Cinderella story are compared there is almost guaranteed to be several differences in the setting, characters, and lines, revealing the effect on the fairy tale of the various culture evolutions since the fairy tale's conception.
2. My argument focuses on what makes a Cinderella story a Cinderella story. I go over differences in various versions of the story and what those differences show about the culture that produced them. I also go into how the magic aspect changes with cultural interpretations and how the symbolism of the shoe fits in with underlying beliefs inherent in all cultures.
3. My sources are basically all books. I have several versions of the Cinderella story, along with several books like Cinderella: A Casebook, A Psychiatric Study of Myths and Fairy Tales, and The Wisdom of Fairy Tales.
4. My best source is probably Cinderella: A Casebook, but my favorite source has to be Politically Correct Bedtime Stories just because it is a collection of the funniest fairy tales I have ever read.
5. I learned that the oldest known Cinderella story comes from Ancient China, the Grimm version of the tale has doves peck out the step-sisters' eyes, and a Scottish version of the tale has a magical black sheep instead of a fairy godmother.

Break Time
Paper driving you crazy? English slowly destroying your sanity? Like random comics made by college students? Even if you don't, check these out.
Research Paper
Freud
Relationship
Extra Credit
Argument
Humility
These have absolutely nothing to do with English, papers, or college in general...they just make me laugh.
Monkey Gun
Freshmen
If you enjoyed these visit MacHall to see more.

The Sardonic Abra Kadabra

2005-04-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

1. I liked how the magician in the X-Files was portrayed as a dirty, tired old man with a sarcastic wit or as a conceited, annoying younger man with a large ego. The contrasts are highly amusing, and the fact that these two very different magicians end up being master and apprentice makes the entire situation even funnier. I also really liked the hand on fire thing. That would be a really cool thing to show at parties...Wave the hand and POOF! It's on fire!!! Fun.

2. The two magician figures in The Amazing Maleeni were portrayed as people with talents and knowledge beyond the normal. Their evident humanity and flaws are what makes them different from the classical magician figure. Too many times a magician figure is displayed as a pompous and untouchable being, far beyond the human scope in their powers. In this show the magicians are human, they have jobs beyond the magic, they dress in normal clothing, and they are concerned with common issues. At the same time they are still magicians, people who can do what others can not understand. They can twist their heads around 360 degrees and light their hand on fire without getting burned as they steal your wallet. They can disappear from inside an armored car and rob a bank safe while being held in a jail cell. They are the familiar and yet they are not.
The questions in the episode are not all resolved, the viewers still don't understand how the magician's head turned all the way around or how someone can light their hand on fire without a flame source and not get burned. The magic remains the unknown quantity, and the audiences resulting emotion of awe and fear show that our reaction to magic and the uncanny has not changed in the last few hundred years.

Jail Bait?

2005-04-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

1. I think that Carolyn Cocca succeeded marvelously in walking the middle road in her article "First Word 'Jail,' Second Word 'Bait'": Adolescent Sexuality, Feminist Theories, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She took differing viewpoints concerning the portrayal of sexual relationships in the Buffy series and showed evidence that supported both sides of the argument. She did not just throw in random acknowledges to one side or the other, nor did she play favorites in her arguments. Instead she looked at the relationships on the show through three different (feminist) viewpoints. I think that it is kind of amusing that all of Buffy's relationships end up looking really bad and abusive, but hey, vampires are not the world's best boyfriends, especially when your job is to kill them. The feminist theories are kind of annoying, they don't seem entirely feminist, mainly because of the view that women need more protection or are unable to make decisions about their body and their actions. All of the theories do bring up good points about the issue, but it is hard to just pick a single viewpoint that works for all circumstances.

2. The thesis statement for this essay, as close as I can tell is, " In this article, I examine the constructions of gender and sexuality on the show in light of these feminist debates. This analysis illustrates that the different interpretations of adolescent sexuality are not necessarily mutually exclusive but can coexist, and do coexist on Buffy " (para. 4). The three different feminist debate groups that the author is talking about are: the liberal feminists, the radical feminists, and the libertarian feminists. The liberal feminists tried to make rape an equality statement between male and female, trying to make it possible for either sex to be the aggressor or the victim. The liberals also wanted laws for age span provisions in the belief that rape is less likely to happen between people of a closer age. The radical feminists wanted to protect the female part of society as the "weaker" part of a relationship and did not believe that a similar age meant consensual sex. Libertarian feminists thought that rape laws might punish consensual sex as well as sending the message that sex between younger or unmarried people was wrong.
The author goes through Buffy's relationships with Angel, Parker, Riley, and Spike, revealing the good and bad of the relationships through the different feminist viewpoints. Buffy's relationship with Angel has major problems; he is a vampire while she is the slayer, he is so much older than her, and Angel has a curse that turns him evil when he experiences true happiness. After sex the curse takes affect and their relationship takes a turn for the worse and Angel leaves, but Buffy is still strongly influenced by her feelings for Angel, clouding her future judgment. Parker is merely a user, taking advantage of girls for his own pleasure, and his relationship with Buffy doesn't progress beyond that. Buffy and Riley seem to get along well, they train and fight together, but they can not reconcile the differences in their methods. Riley's world is too different from Buffy's, and he chooses the military over her. Spike and Buffy, on the other hand have a hate/love abusive relationship. They stay together for quite a while, fight with and against one another, often say that they both love and hate one another, and often end up in conflict.
This article is well written with good flow between the subjects as it is mostly written in chronological order, allowing the author to lead from one relationship to the next. The feminist theories are used with textual (is it a text?) examples for comparisons that are easily understood and well proven. The entire argument is well constructed and transitions very well from subject to subject.

Evil Thesis

2005-04-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, for my topic I want to compare the aspect of magic from mythology to the aspect of magic from fairytales. Basically I just want to be able to write about magic in fairytales. To compare fairytales and mythology I will have to pick an example/examples of each. The best way to go would be to take popular fairytales like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, etc. in order to allow the reader to have some familiarity with the subject. For the same reason I should probably use the better known Greek myths as well (and I will use Greek myths because I am more familiar with their style and subjects). An alternative to comparing mythology and fairytales is looking at the changes of a fairytale over time as influenced by society. For that one I would probably use Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty because they both have been redone so many times that the shift should be more pronounced. So here are my resulting three theses (doesn't that look like the plural of these?). I apologize ahead of time for how bad they are, I usually end up rewriting my thesis at least five times when doing a paper.

Popular fairytales have become the watered down, socially accepted version of what mythology once was, adhering to what is "politically correct" instead of what was originally written.
Overtime media has changed fairytales, like Cinderella, to fit the changing political and social views of the general public.
The magic of fairytales has become a very different area of belief than the magic of the ancient myths, showing society's changing view of magic and the beings who wield it.

As a side note, if you find these boring and/or annoying, and if you have some free time, check out my Random Magical... Things blog, it is highly amusing and pointless and always make me feel happier for its stupidity. Wow, now I am pimping my own blogs... disturbing.

Movie Response

2005-03-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

This blog is going to be a response on Ringwrath #5's movie vs. book blog. I agree completely. Books are soooooo much better than the movies. Yes, there are some exceptions and I loved the Lord of the Rings movies just as much as the next geek, but there is no way a director can capture what I picture a story as in my imagination and then once I see the movie, my imagination is corrupted. For example lets look at the third Harry Potter movie. If you read the books before seeing the movies (as I did), then you probably had a pretty good visual representation of the world in your head (as I did), and then you see the movie and end up stuck with some really annoying actors as your visuals. I liked how I pictured Sirus Black, I had a good image of how I thought he would look, but now I can't get the actor out of my head! That is one of the main reasons why I am not a fan of the movies. Don't get me wrong, they were all pretty good movies, especially the third one, but, as Ringwraith said, they kept CUTTING OUT PARTS!!!!!! I mean come on, where did Neville go? Is he just gonna pop into a major supporting character role later or something? And since when could dementors fly? There is absolutely no mention of flying dementors in the books... ANYWHERE (Trust me. I checked).

Hobbit Question

2005-03-14T19:36:00.000-08:00

1. I think I would have preferred to take one of the other questions. "If The Hobbit is all about boys having fun, what should women readers take from the novel?" What the heck?!? People are supposed to take things different ways depending on character gender? I always ignored the fact that an author cast mainly males or mainly females. Personally I think that it is more a product of when the book was written, along with the author's personal preferences, than anything else. That is just what I think about the subject, the annoying part of the assignment is trying to find support from the book. How the heck am I supposed to find something women should "take from the novel." It all depends on personal beliefs and viewpoints! Oh well, here goes anyway.

2. The Hobbit is a novel written in a time where women were only starting to change their image from 'housewife' to 'person', so it is not all that surprising that a story about a dangerous quest be cast of all male characters. Yet, the fact that there are no main female characters for women to 'look up to' in the story does not mean that women can not take as much from the novel as any man. The traits shown by the characters like bravery, independence, overcoming adversity, and an enjoyment of food, can be important lessons whether the characters are male, female, or gigantic animals. The underlying themes are there regardless of the details that make up the story. Had Bilbo been female there would have been differences, of course, but the basics would have stayed the same overall. If there had been women cast as main characters, there probably would have been more common sense used.... Like, for instance, the basic concept of how bad an idea it is to go randomly running off after unidentifiable floating lights in a very deadly forest. Or, perhaps the idea that trying to steal from trolls that could eat you, might have been considered a bad idea, but that is all irrelevant. The thing that should be taken from this novel are the pieces of wisdom that Gandalf periodically distributes, like "You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!" (Tolkien, 303)

Random Magical...Things

2005-03-05T23:16:00.000-08:00

1. Gandalf rocks, that's it, I proclaim myself a geek and I stand by my opinion that Gandalf totally rocks. He is a wizard that has been alive for a long, long, LONG time, he makes the world's best fireworks, adventures follow him like puppies, and he has a pointy hat. In my standards that makes him completely awesome. ANYway the idea of magic as a genetic trait or as a kind of science has always been one of my favorite fantasy concepts. The idea of being able to do something like making fire in the palm of my hand or doing the whole randomly making things glow/float has always seemed fun, and who doesn't want to be an elf. I mean you get to have funky colored hair, you can play tricks on people, there is the whole moving silently through forests thing, AND you get pointy ears!!! Pointy ears are soooooo cool!!!! Everyone should have pointy ears!!! Whoops, must get back on subject. Lets just go to part two.

2. The magic of fantasy literature in general and Tolkien in specific is characteristically linked to certain kinds of people and objects. There are certain races who all seem to have magic, like elves, dragons, trolls, hobbits, gryphons, goblins, orcs, unicorns, etc. These races are usually at least semi-human in their intelligence and can use their genetic magic with little to no training. It is part of them, it is in their subconscious with their instincts and basic reflexes, sort of like the human reflex to draw back from a source of intense pain. Then there is the magic that is linked to specific people, like wizards, witches, enchanters, mages, etc. These 'magical people' usually seem to have the ability to do magic, but unlike the genetic magic of the races, they must learn their magic. Magical people sometimes come from a long line of previous magical people, other times they just spring up out of no where. The way Tolkien writes about Gandalf and wizards in general makes it seem like there is a race of wizards, just like there is a race of hobbits. The truth about whether or not Gandalf's magic is instinctive or learned is a mystery that shall plague us 'til the end of time!
The third fantasy-literature magic is linked to objects. Cloaks of invisibility, magic swords, enchanted rings, possessed mirrors that speak in rhyme, all of these are examples of magic infused objects. Most of the time the magic that is placed into the object is done so at the object's creation. The maker of the object either puts the spell, blessing, or magical whatever into the object through the method of its making and thus a magical... thing is made. The other way a magical object is made is by giving a normal object some magical aspects. This is accomplished by placing a spell on a normal object, placing the normal object in a magical substance, or by the normal object getting hit by the side affects of a spell that was directed at something nearby. Possession of the object by a ghost or spirit (there can be a difference) has also been known to bring the object over into the magical category.
Whatever form the magic takes fantasy-literature authors must make it a fundamental part of the world to make it believable. There has to be laws that govern how and where it can be used, what can counter it, and what its limitations are. Once the author has established this in the diegetic space of the story the laws must stay constant. If one part of the story has the magic weapon incapable of stopping attacks made by glowing rodents then that weapon had better stay incapable of stopping attacks by glowing rodents for the rest of the story unless someone fixes that blatant flaw in its construction somewhere within the story. If the laws of the world's magic change then the world has a loop-hole that can shake the reader's belief in the world. Tolkien's stories all have the continuity necessary for readers' to believe in the reality of the story, allowing readers' to believe in the magic of the story as well.

Five Steps to Getting a Magic Sword
Here are five easy to follow steps to get a magic sword:

Go on a quest. The quest doesn't need to be anything really great, though it does help if there is a constant threat of danger. The standard "save the world/kingdom" quest works well, or you could go for the "get rich quick off dragon gold" quest, they tend to have higher fatality rates but they have good hazard pay if you succeed. As a side note, your odds of success in getting a magic sword increase if you happen to be an orphan that doesn't know his/her parents, if you have an odd birthmark, or if you have a talking animal companion.
Gather companions for your quest. There are some basic guidelines for companions that will be needed on a quest. You will need a good fighter, not necessarily too intelligent, a wizard or magical person, usually old and wise but not completely respectable, and a few other decent fighters with random traits that could help out, these usually come with the good fighter or the wizard. You might want to consider getting a healer, a strong silent woodsman/tracker type, and perhaps someone who works both sides of the law, if they are trustworthy. Thieves are very popular for this role.
Find a great evil to face. The evil doesn't necessarily have to be a GREAT evil, but it does have to be somewhat life threatening. It helps if this evil has been mistreating/killing/plundering/harassing innocent villagers, and they have to be villagers. City-people and villagers can be harassed by the same evil, but if the evil has just been harassing City-people you are going to have to go out and find a new evil somewhere.
Travel into unknown territory. It is best if the unknown territory is in the direction you have to go anyway, but if you have no other choice you can just wander into any unknown territory nearby. Common practice shows that forests and mountains work best. While wandering look for old ruins, ancient road-markers, or random caves with funky carvings along the walls.
Fight evil lackeys. Sometime while wandering in the unknown territory you will come upon evil lackeys, they might be from your great evil, from another great evil, or they might just be random lackeys inbetween jobs, it doesn't really matter. They will not be very intelligent or strong and you and your companions will be able to defeat them after a slightly harrowing fight. It is either during or after this fight that you will find the magic sword. Now magic swords come in two forms: blatantly magical or disguised. The blatantly magical are usually very shiny, very sharp, have odd runes and/or symbols carved over them, and glow. These kind of swords are usually guarded by spells that only allow specific people to bear them, or stuck in rocks waiting for the "Chosen One." This is where the orphan thing can come in handy. The disguised swords are dull, rusty, completely ordinary looking in every way, and are usually in a corner or stacked with a bunch of other old weaponry. Once you have found the magic sword you must proclaim its name with great fanfair and stirring music in the background as multiple lighting effects go off, or you can keep the sword a secret from everyone except your wizard companion until you go to face the great evil, and then proclaim the name of the sword with great fanfair and effects.

If you follow these five easy steps and happen to live in a realm with magical influences then you will be sure to get a magic weapon.

This blog is not responsible for any results brought about by following the five steps to getting a magical weapon. Steps are not guaranteed to work at any place or time and should not be tried without supervision by a responsible magic worker. This blog is also not responsible for any deaths, injuries, maiming, spiritual possession, curses, destruction of properties, enchantings, rampages, plundering, assaults, wars, invasions by demonic forces, or any other outcome of taking on any of these steps, especially the fighting of a great evil. This blog does not advise the fighting of a great evil without proper training. Five Steps to getting a Magic Weapon is the property of my deranged imagination.

PS. I apologize for the contents of this blog. It was originally written on a sugar/caffeine high and so the exceptional exuberance over... everything is regretted.

Dragon Volant

2005-02-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

1. Argh!!! Beckett is so annoying! Could he possibly be more dense? I mean really, it is so obvious that the countess and the marquis are playing him for his money, but of course he is too big an idiot to understand that. This story just gets on my nerves. I have never really enjoyed this type of story, or stories from this time frame, but this one just has to have a narrator that I want to smack upside the head. I think we should have read the lesbian vampire story instead, that story sounds interesting, or maybe the story about the priests that sees monkeys (kinda reminds me of Family Guy... you know, the angry monkey Kris sees), both of those stories sound like they would be more enjoyable. Oh well, I suffered through the oblivious wanderings of Beckett so I might as well go into what I thought about him.

2. The narrator of this story, Richard Beckett is a young English nobleman who has decided to tour France in order to gamble, wench, get drunk as often as possible, and to be able to tell fascinating, and untrue, stories about his exploits when he gets home. He is portrayed as a man well used to the benefits of money and position. Beckett is very concerned with noble rank and standing, dismisses any servants as beneath his notice unless he wants something, and is very vain about his appearance.

Looking at myself in the glass, adjusted my great white 'choker', folded and tied after Brummel, the immortal 'Beau', put on a buff waistcoat and my blue swallow-tailed coat with gilt buttons; I deluged my pocket handkerchief with Eau-de-Cologne; I arranged my hair, on which I piqued myself.... I took my unexceptionable hat from its case, and placed it lightly on my wise head.... A pair of light French gloves and a rather club-like knotted walking-stick, such as just then came into vogue, for a year or two again in England, in the phraseology of Sir Walter Scott's romances, 'completed my equipment' (Le Fanu, 128).

The previous passage is an excellent example of the care and effort the Beckett put into his appearance, and it also gives the audience a measure of his vanity. Throughout the story it is very apparent that Beckett concentrates his attention on what he wants to see and believe. This trait of self-imposed ignorance can be seen as an outgrowth of his vanity and naivete. He does not want to be seen as looking anything less than his best, and if he is looking his best, as he always is of course, then any woman will swoon over him and any man will be impressed. At least that is how things seem to work in Beckett's little world. The man also can not take a hint to save his life... literally. Beckett sees suspicious meetings involving people that he knows shouldn't be talking together and doesn't think anything of it, he blithely accepts anyone's word at whole value, and he does not question anything. He does not wonder what Colonel Gaillarde, the Marquis, and a strange man are doing in the back of an antique shop, he does not question how the Countess happened to get her hands on a key that opened a secret door in his room of the Dragon Volant, Beckett doesn't even bother to think about why a countess with a fortune in diamonds decides to run off with a man she has known for only a few days. The only indication that Beckett is not a complete idiot is a line he says when he comes to the Dragon Volant, "What a fool I was! And yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same" (Le Fanu, 168).

Little Old Ladies

2005-02-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

1. I have to say that the little old ladies of Cranford remind me of my Nana and her friends. Every morning she goes to a small restaurant near her house between 10 and 11. She has been going to this same restaurant for over 20 years. She knows every server, and when I say 'knows' I mean that she knows the names and birthdays of their family members, their hobbies, their medical history, and a brief synopsis of the last 25 years of their life. Every morning when she walks in it takes at least twenty minutes for her to sit down because she must speak with every other person in the restaurant that she knows; which is a majority since they also are all elderly people who have been going there forever. She then sits down with some of her friends for breakfast, tea, and gossip. The Cranford ladies seem to be the Victorian equivalent of my Nana and her friends. They have been doing the same things with the same people for years, and the only thing that ever really changes is the gossip topics. They know everyone's business, and if anything happens, they are the first to give an embellished telling of the event.
2. The Great Panic is brought about by non-existential robbers. The women hear a rumor of thieves in Cranford, and all of a sudden there is a gang of French spies that are going to steal their silver, all under the direction of Signor Brunoni. Most of this delusion is the result of Miss Matty and Miss Pole embellishing fictional tales of what is going on in Cranford. As the narrator, Mary Smith puts it, "Miss Pole was evidently anxious to prove that such terrible events had occurred within her experience that she was justified in her sudden panic; and Miss Matty did not like to be outdone, and capped every story with one yet more horrible..." The ladies of Cranford took on a mob mentality, believing whatever was said with complete trust, for why would one of their own not tell the entire truth? Yet, the ladies of Cranford live every day with the illusion of elegant economy, so the illusion of danger is no harder to create. Gaskell tries to show how the women create their own little reality within the setting of Cranford, changing whatever they see and hear to fit their fantasy. What is ordinary and boring becomes that which must be feared and guarded against.

The Modern Uncanny

2005-02-20T10:21:00.000-08:00

1. I really couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed while reading Freud, to me he always seems to concentrate too much on "primal urges" and other such basic desires. I can understand his point about every person developing through certain stages based on basic physical and emotional feelings, but does he have to associate The Sandman with the castration complex? It really doesn't seem necessary to rationalize Nathaniel's fear of loosing his eyes to a childhood bogeyman as some kind of transferred fear of castration.
The whole paper after part I seems to be Freud reaching farther and farther a field to try to prove contradicting points about the uncanny. He tells us about literature, Egyptian myth, his patients, and even his own experiences of the uncanny, which he originally denied he had, all in order to say that "...the uncanny [unheimlich] is something which is secretly familiar [heimlich-heimisch], which has undergone repression and then returned from it..." Freud then goes into criticizing the literary version of the uncanny and the way it is used, just because he can. The majority of part III is Freud venting is disapproval of different aspects of fictional literature.

2. Freud's 1919 description of the uncanny is based in a much more clear-cut fashion than can be used in the 21st-century. The mediums through which we communicate and entertain have evolved far beyond what Freud knew, changing human experiences and our ideas upon reality. Movies, television, plays, and books all embrace the idea of the 'disturbingly familiar' and give us the ability to experience the 'uncanny' in the comfort of our own home. We have become contemptuous of those who have the 'childish fears' of the things that go bump in the deep of night. The bogeyman has become a myth besides Santa Claus, something parents resort to in order to make their children behave. Yet, even with the 'modern beliefs' of our culture, there are still those who hold their breath when passing a graveyard, people who join covens, or fear the monsters of the darkness. We can not overcome our own fears of the unknown, because there will always be an unknown to fear. It does not matter how modern the culture, or how balanced the individual, there will still be the fear of that which "...ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light."

Hello

2005-02-08T06:30:00.000-08:00

This is just testing out my blog.